39: Chapter 39 Flesh and Blood

Lin Yan's footsteps stopped in a gravel-strewn plaza, his gaze lifting toward the grey-white building in the distance.

"What's in that building?" Lin Yan asked.

Song Shiyu closed her eyes, her sensory ripples extending hundreds of meters to the northeast. She frowned, then relaxed, her tone tinged with confusion.

"There are life signs, two of them." She paused, as if confirming something. "One has a very high energy intensity... extremely high. The other is very weak, like... it's about to go out. The two are very close to each other."

Lin Yan stepped forward and headed toward the building.

"Let's go up and take a look."

The gap between the buses was narrow. Lin Yan squeezed through, his boots crunching on the broken glass in the lobby with a crisp sound.

The lobby was very dark. The ceiling slab above had several cracks, with faint light leaking through. Deep inside, the stairwell door was half-open, with a line of words carved into it with a knife.

The handwriting was crooked, but every stroke was deep.

"Don't come up, I beg you! My wife is up here."

Ma Chen and Han Yi exchanged a glance; Shen Bing's brow furrowed. Lin Yan stood before the door for two seconds, then reached out and pushed it open.

The stairs were made of poured concrete, and a thick layer of dust had accumulated on the steps. There were footprints on the dusty surface, belonging to only one person, extending from the first floor all the way up. They were on every single step, indicating that this person had walked up and down this staircase countless times.

Lin Yan began to walk up.

Tenth floor, twentieth floor, twenty-fifth floor.

The stairwell door on the twenty-fifth floor had been welded shut from the inside. Several pieces of angle iron were welded crosswise between the door panel and the frame. The welds were rusty, but none had broken. A strip of cloth hung from the angle iron, with a few lines written on it in charcoal.

"She won't bite you, she recognizes me, but don't get too close, she'll get scared."

Lin Yan reached out, gripped a piece of angle iron, and pulled hard. The welds cracked, rust flaked off, and the sound of metal breaking echoed in the stairwell for a long time. He tore the angle iron off one by one, then pushed the door open.

The twenty-fifth floor was a large open space, likely a former office area.

Dozens of mineral water jugs were stacked against the wall, most of them already empty. Some packaging bags and tin cans were scattered on the floor, stacked very neatly. In the corner, a few quilts were spread out; they were yellowed and stiff, but folded perfectly square.

Deep inside, near the floor-to-ceiling window, sat a man.

He was too thin—so thin that his cheekbones protruded sharply and his eye sockets were deeply sunken. The clothes on his body were torn into rags, revealing layers of new and old scars on his arms.

He was holding a woman in his arms. The woman's eyes were closed, her skin as white as snow, devoid of any color, and she was as quiet as if she were sleeping. If one didn't look closely, they wouldn't notice that her breathing was almost non-existent.

Hearing the commotion, the man slowly raised his head.

His eyes were cloudy, as if he hadn't seen light for a long time. But when his gaze landed on Lin Yan, a faint glimmer flashed in those eyes.

"Don't come over..."

Lin Yan squatted down, bringing his line of sight level with the man's.

"Who is she?"

The man lowered his head to look at the woman in his arms, reaching out to gently brush a strand of hair from her ear. The movement was very light, so light it was as if he were afraid of shattering her.

"My wife," he said.

His voice was very calm—unnaturally calm.

"When the zombie outbreak happened two years ago, she was bitten. Everyone was fleeing, everyone was saying, 'People who are bitten will turn into zombies, they can't be kept.' But she is my wife; I couldn't abandon her."

Lin Yan didn't speak.

The man's gaze returned to the woman in his arms, his voice sounding as if he were talking to himself.

"My ability is Flesh Regeneration. Sounds ridiculous, right? The power I awakened is the ability to make my own flesh grow back. Cut it with a knife, and it grows back. Slice off a piece, and it grows back again. It's useless—can't fight zombies, can't withstand attacks."

He paused.

"But after she was bitten, I discovered that my flesh... could calm her down."

The man moved his hand away from the woman's ear and rolled up his sleeve. His arms were covered in scars, dense and overlapping, both new and old. In some places, the skin no longer grew, revealing the dark red muscle fibers beneath. He pointed to the deepest depression on his arm.

"The first time, I cut off a small piece and put it into her mouth. After she ate it, she stopped roaring and was quiet for a whole day. Later, she would become agitated every few days, so I would cut a piece for her. The more I cut, the longer she stayed quiet. Eventually, she needed to eat several pieces a day, so I just kept cutting them off, one by one."

Shen Bing's lips were trembling, her fingers clutching frost, but the frost melted into a puddle of water in her palm.

"After she ate my flesh, she was different from other zombies." There was something indescribable in the man's voice—it sounded like pride, and yet also like sorrow.

"The zombies you've seen have rotting skin and falling flesh, eventually turning into those decayed monsters. But she didn't. After she ate my flesh, her skin stayed white, just without any color. Her consciousness also returned a little... not much, but sometimes she would open her eyes and look at me. I don't know if she still recognizes me, but when she looks at me, she doesn't roar or bite."

Lin Yan looked at the woman curled up in the man's arms. Her eyelashes were long, her nose bridge high; even though her skin was as white as paper, one could tell she must have been very beautiful while alive. Her breathing was almost non-existent, but there was an extremely faint rise and fall in her chest.

"Has she ever left here?" Lin Yan asked.

The man shook his head.

"Never. I brought her to this building and welded the stairwell door shut. She's been here for two years and hasn't hurt anyone." His voice suddenly became urgent, as if defending someone. "She has never hurt anyone! She was just... she was just hungry. When she was hungry, she would get agitated; I would feed her meat, and she would calm down. She never attacked anyone proactively, never!"

Song Shiyu's sensory ripples inadvertently swept over the woman while the man was speaking. The instant the information fed back, her face turned deathly pale.

Her hands were shaking, her lips trembling, and she couldn't say a single word.

Lin Yan saw her expression and walked over to her side. Song Shiyu shared the information she had perceived with him using her talent. This was the first time she had used this function, because she felt that what she had seen must be known to Lin Yan.

[Monster: ??? (Unnamed) · Hidden BOSS]

[Level: ???]

[HP: ???]

[Attack Power: ???]

[Defense: ???]

[Type: Hidden BOSS, evolved from a mutant zombie through special feeding.]

[Special Note: This unit has never attacked humans. All energy fluctuations are passive diffusion; no active intent to attack has been detected.]

Lin Yan closed the information panel and walked back to the man.

"What is her name?"

The man froze for a moment, and tears suddenly welled up in his cloudy eyes. He lowered his head, gently holding the woman's hand with his own scarred hand, his voice as soft as if telling a secret.

"Li Wanqing."

"My name is Zhao Yue."

Lin Yan looked at this man and the woman in his arms, remaining silent for a long time.